Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHNEIDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my two amendments, Amendment No. 137 and Amendment No. 138, both which work to address the incidents of domestic terror that are increasing across the country.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, in 2019, domestic extremists killed at least 42 people in the United States in 17 separate incidents. This number makes 2019 the sixth deadliest year on record for domestic extremist-related killings. Last year, a Trump Administration Department of Justice official wrote in a New York Times op-ed that ``white supremacy and far-right extremism are among the greatest domestic-security threats facing the United States.'' Regrettably, over the past 25 years, law enforcement, at both the Federal and State levels, has been slow to respond.

It is not enough to just condemn hate; we need to equip law enforcement with the tools needed to identify threats and prevent violent acts of domestic terrorism.

I am pleased that these two amendments are included in H.R. 7617 to help address this urgent need to keep Americans safe from these heinous acts of discrimination.

The first, Amendment No. 137 allocates $1 million to direct the FBI to track and report to Congress every year on extremist activity in law enforcement agencies. It is critical that our law enforcement agencies are held to the highest standards. My amendment allocates these funds for the FBI to combat white supremacist infiltration of the uniformed services and federal law enforcement.

The second, Amendment No. 138, allocates $10 million in funds so that the FBI can assign a special agent or hate crimes liaison to each field office of the FBI to investigate hate crime incidents with a nexus to domestic terrorism, so that the agency has the resources in place to address this national issue.

I thank the Committee for including both of these important amendments in En Bloc 2.

The time is now to take the grave threat of domestic terrorism seriously. That means not only speaking out but giving our agencies the tools to combat it immediately. I believe these amendments are an important first step to effectively monitoring and putting a stop to extremist violence in America.

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